Vignette 20: Ribbon Creek

[wcg]

On the night of April 8th 1956, at Parris Island South Carolina, Marine Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon took his platoon of recruits out for an unscheduled night march. McKeon's intent was to induce a bit of misery in his troops due to poor discipline in the platoon. Night marches were a fairly common practice at the time

Comments

[jhetley]

It's a bad sign when a guy starts to *remember* history . . .

That got a lot of print and TV coverage at the time.

[wcg]

Yeah, it did. I was a bit young to notice, but I'd guess you weren't. It sure did have a dramatic effect on recruit training.

[micheinnz]

They were studying my lifetime in high school history before I left high school.

[jhetley]

All our high-school history courses ended short of WWI. I think the teachers/administration were nervous about teaching things within living memory, where they might have parents or grandparents contradicting the text.

[siliconshaman]

Pity that some people failed to learn from history.. judging by the pattern of suspicious "suicides" at Cattarick and Deep Cut barracks over here. [seriously, how does someone kill themselves by shooting themselves in the back of the head with a rifle...twice! And how does a inquiry get away with upholding that verdict?]

Still... it's a healthy sign when 'the system' can recognise that when something like that happens, and its the result of doing it 'by the book', then it's time to change the book.

and in case I've not said it before...I'm of the opinion that the Marine core pretty much represents the best of everything that's good about the American military.

[wcg]

Thanks. I think the Corps is pretty good too, though I recognize that it's had its problems over the years. We've done best when we've given ourselves a good hard look like we did after Ribbon Creek, and realized that we could do better, and then set out to do better.

[siliconshaman]

That's pretty much what I was trying to say actually... instead of reacting by covering up [like some of the bad apples over here] your lot had the guts to take a long hard look at the way things were done and not use the excuse of "he was only doing it by the book" etc...

Hmm, I guess being the best sin;t about getting it right 100%, but about knowing when and where you doing ti wrong and being willing to improve.

Which, like I said, exemplifies the ideal.

[acelightning]

"...We were waist deep in the Big Muddy,
But the durn fool said to push on!"

[wcg]

Yeah, it does put you in mind of that. Though that episode of American military history took place in 1941.

[acelightning]

And the 1941 incident was the Army's problem, so the Marines paid it no mind...

[wcg]

I wouldn't say the Marines entirely ignored it, but yeah, there's always been a conceit that we're much better. (And that's generally true.)

[dj_jonny_flash]

And I thought my basic was hard!

& I thought R. Lee Ermey was exaggerating.

[wcg]

Did GySgt Emery talk about Ribbon Creek somewhere? Because yeah, he is something of a bullshitter. He sure is good advertising though!

[kylakae]

Wow.

Seems kind of wrong that Marine recruits couldn't swim.

[wcg]

You have to be able to swim to graduate from boot camp, but the Corps teaches those who don't know how.

[kylakae]

Okay, that makes sense! Heh.

[jhetley]

If the boots were marching in full gear, that can impede swimming . . .